Genevieve Ugochi Iwuanyawu v Ratcliffes Solicitors
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Master Gordon-Saker |
| Judgment Date | 12 June 2020 |
| Neutral Citation | [2020] EWHC B25 (Costs) |
| Date | 12 June 2020 |
| Docket Number | Case No: SC-2020-APP-000080 |
| Court | Senior Court Costs Office |
[2020] EWHC B25 (Costs)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
SENIOR COURTS COSTS OFFICE
Royal Courts of Justice
London, WC2A 2LL
Master Gordon-Saker
Case No: SC-2020-APP-000080
Mr Asad Maqsood (instructed by Julia and Rana) for the Claimant
Mr Samuel Davis (instructed by Ratcliffes) for the Defendants
Hearing date: 2 June 2020 (by Skype)
This judgment was handed down remotely by circulation to the parties' representatives by email and release to Bailii. The date and time for hand-down is deemed to be 4 pm on Friday 12 June 2020
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
Master Gordon-Saker Master Gordon-Saker First I must apologise that this is a reserved judgment rather than the ex tempore judgment which everybody would have expected. The hearing was held remotely by Skype and proceeded fairly smoothly until, towards the end, the recording stopped and would not restart. That turned out to be because my computer's hard drive had filled to capacity and would accept no more Skype recordings, for which I apologise. Accordingly I recorded the remainder of the hearing on my mobile telephone and, as by then my computer was struggling to open any documents, I reserved judgment.
The Claimant, Mrs Iwuanyawu, seeks an order for the detailed assessment of 13 out of 14 bills delivered to her by the Defendants, a firm of solicitors in Sittingbourne, in respect of her matrimonial proceedings. The only bill not in issue is the second, number 17123, which was only for the court fee for the divorce petition. At a hearing on 16 th March 2020 I directed that the last 8 bills should be the subject of detailed assessment. Those bills had been delivered less than 12 months before the issue of these proceedings and there was no reason to refuse a detailed assessment.
The detailed assessment of the first 6 bills, including the bill for the court fee not now challenged, was opposed by the Defendants because: (1) the first 2 bills had been paid more than 12 months before the issue of proceedings and so, it was said, the court did not have jurisdiction to order assessment; and (2) the latter 4 bills had been paid before but within 12 months of the commencement of proceedings and so the Claimant would need to show special circumstances.
Accordingly I directed that the claim in respect of the first 6 bills should be adjourned for the Claimant to file evidence as to jurisdiction and special circumstances. The Claimant filed a witness statement dated 29 th March 2020. The Defendants chose not to file a statement in reply but shortly before the adjourned hearing filed copies of the client care letter and the Defendants' standard terms of business. On behalf of the Claimant, Mr Maqsood objected to the late production of these documents and because they had not been produced as exhibits to a witness statement. However as the Claimant accepted that she had signed the client care letter and as Mr Maqsood had the opportunity to take her instructions on it, I decided that it would be appropriate to admit the letter and the standard terms.
The jurisdiction to order the detailed assessment of solicitors' bills on the application of (usually former) clients is contained in section 70 Solicitors Act 1974. The relevant parts are:
(3) Where an application under subsection (2) is made by the party chargeable with the bill—
(a) after the expiration of 12 months from the delivery of the bill, or
(b) after a judgment has been obtained for the recovery of the costs covered by the bill, or
(c) after the bill has been paid, but before the expiration of 12 months from the payment of the bill,
no order shall be made except in special circumstances and, if an order is made, it may contain such terms as regards the costs of the assessment as the court may think fit.
(4) The power to order assessment conferred by subsection (2) shall not be exercisable on an application made by the party chargeable with the bill after the expiration of 12 months from the payment of the bill.
There was no real issue between the parties as to the law. The issues canvassed in submissions were:
i) Whether the Defendants' bills contained enough information to be bills.
ii) If they did, whether the Defendants were entitled to render interim statute bills.
iii) If the bills were bills which were capable of assessment, whether there were special circumstances such as to justify the assessment of the third to sixth bills.
The first two issues are raised by the Claimant to defeat the argument that the court does not have jurisdiction to order the assessment of the first bill. If the first bill was not a bill when it was paid then it was not a bill paid more than 12 months before the issue of proceedings. However, as Mr Davis pointed out, that may pose the Claimant with a problem because all of the bills were in similar form and if the first bill was not a bill, then the others were also not bills which are capable of assessment.
The status of the bills
A bill must contain sufficient information to enable the client to obtain advice as to its detailed assessment. In Ralph Hume Garry v Gwillim [2003] 1 WLR 510, the Court of Appeal considered whether a series of bills submitted by the claimants to the defendant complied with section 69 of the Solicitors Act 1974. Ward LJ summarised the authorities:
63 I accept the principle expressed in Lord Campbell CJ's judgment in Cook v Gillard 1 E & B 26, 36–37 that:
the defendant who undertakes to prove that the bill is not a bona fide compliance with the Act cannot found an objection upon want of information in the bill, if it appears that he is already in possession of that information … a client has no ground of objection to a bill who is in possession of all the information that can be reasonably wanted for the consulting on taxation.
In Eversheds v Osman [2000] 1 Costs LR 54, 61–63 Nourse LJ posed this test in not dissimilar terms, viz: is the client unable to judge as to the justice of the amount of the fees which are charged?
…
64 Thus I would accept the proper principle to be that there must be something in the written bill to indicate the ambit of the work but that inadequacies of description of the work done may be redressed by accompanying documents (as in Eversheds v Osman where it was doubtful whether the bill on the face of it would have been sufficient) or by other information already in the possession of the client. That, it seems to me, would serve the purpose of the Act to give the client the knowledge he reasonably needs in order to decide whether to insist on taxation. If the solicitor satisfies that then the bill is one bone fide complying with the Act.
…
70 This review of the legislation and the case law leads me to conclude that the burden on the client under section 69(2) of the Solicitors Act 1974 to establish that a bill for a gross sum in contentious business will not be a bill “bona fide complying with this Act” is satisfied if the client shows: (i) that there is no sufficient narrative in the bill to identify what it is he is being charged for, and (ii) that he does not have sufficient knowledge from other documents in his possession or from what he has been told reasonably to take advice whether or not to apply for that bill to be taxed. The sufficiency of the narrative and the sufficiency of his knowledge will vary from case to case, and the more he knows, the less the bill may need to spell it out for him. The interests of justice require that the balance be struck between protection of the client's right to seek taxation and of the solicitor's right to recover not being defeated by opportunistic resort to technicality.
In my judgment the bills in the present case did contain sufficient information to enable the Claimant to know what she was being charged for. Each bill set out the date on which work was done and what work was done. Each communication identified who the communication was with. Mr Maqsood criticised the repeated use of “preparation of documents and perusal” as a description of the work done when in only a few cases what was prepared or perused was identified.
However it seems to me that what was being done was sufficiently described to enable the claimant to decide the justice of the amount of the fees which are charged. Her case is that these fees are not justified because no documents were being perused or prepared other than those expressly identified. As Mr Davis submitted, these criticisms are matters for the detailed assessment but they do not prevent the bills from being bills which are capable of assessment.
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...to an end. 22 I am fortified in that analysis by the judgment of Master Gordon-Saker in the case Iwuanyawu v Ratcliffes Solicitors [2020] EWHC B25 (Costs) where a similar situation arose and after holding that the interim bills did not comply with the statute, he went on to say at [27]: “…......